Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) (59 page)

“I am Kurhv Kralj,” his protector was saying to the Mairki and Svarti. Cima, crouching near the throne, translated for Ennis. Kurhv Kralj gestured to the head of Grozan Kralj, now mounted on a Daoine spear to one side of the stage. The stench in the room was foul and thick, but only Ennis seemed to notice it. “I claim the title. The Mairki will now show their throats to me or give me challenge.”

Kurhv Kralj hissed after he spoke, extending his clawed hand. Two of the Mairki had immediately raised their snouts to expose the pale, unscaled folds of their throat. A third followed, though the last in line did not move. “That one is Lieve Mairki, who Grozan Kralj put in Kurhv Kralj’s place,” Cima whispered. Ennis could hear the trepidation in Cima’s voice, but if Kurhv Kralj felt the same emotion, he gave no indication. He leaped from the dais to stand before the first of the Mairki. He grasped the Arruk’s throat, his claws digging so deeply into the Mairki’s skin that Ennis saw it dimple and turn pale. Ennis knew that Kurhv Kralj could kill the Mairki with a simple twist and pull of his hand. The Mairki’s eyes widened and he rose up on his feet to relieve the pressure, but otherwise he didn’t move. A breath later, Kurhv Kralj released him. He repeated the process with the other two Mairki until he stood at last in front of Lieve Mairki.

Lieve Mairki still had not shown his throat. He stared at Kurhv Kralj, their faces level. “Should we make space, then, Lieve Mairki?” Kralj Kurhv asked him. “Do you want your head displayed next to Grozan’s?”

Lieve Mairki’s eyes flicked over to the dead Kralj’s skull. Ennis saw the Mairki’s muscles flex in his arms, in his chest, and he was certain that the Arruk would hurl himself on Kurhv Kralj. But though his body trembled and his breath quickened, he held. Slowly, he raised his snout, and Kurhv Kralj’s hand flashed forward, grasping Lieve Mairki’s throat so hard and quickly that the Arruk stumbled backward. “How does it feel?” Kurhv Kralj asked him. “At least I gave you a choice, Lieve Mairki. I could have shamed you as Grozan Kralj did me. Look there . . .”

Kurhv Kralj turned the Mairki’s head so that he was looking at Grozan Kralj’s mounted head. Blood drooled down Lieve Mairki’s throat to his chest. “That is what I do to my enemies. That is the fate of any who challenge my right to be Kralj.” He shoved Lieve Mairki backward, releasing him at the same time so that he fell into his Svarti standing behind. The Svarti’s spell-stick clattered to the ground and the Arruk mage pushed Lieve Mairki upright again as Kurhv Kralj strode back to the dais.

Kurhv Kralj’s scales had brightened in satisfaction. Cima handed him his jaka and he slammed the end of the weapon against the dais three times. “I am Kurhv Kralj,” he declared again, his voice booming in the hall. “And now it’s the Svarti’s time to show their throats.” He pointed to Ennis. “This is Ennis Svarti of the Perakli, who defeated Gyl Svarti and who will stand beside me in battle. Svarti, step forward.”

At Kurhv Kralj’s gesture, the four Svarti moved forward as the Mairki slid back. The line of spell-casters stared at Ennis, radiating their hate like the heat from the bonfires of the Festival of Méitha. He clutched the spell-stick with one hand and Treoraí’s Heart with the other. His clóca slid back, showing the scars of the mage-lights on his arm.
“Don’t show them your fear . . .”
Isibéal whispered, but Gyl Svarti’s voice hissed even louder.
“They can
smell
the fear in you,”
he said. “
And it makes them hungry for your blood. But there’s fear in them, too—look, you can see it. They know what you did to me; they know that it was
you
who killed Grozan Kralj, not Kurhv Kralj. They look at you and they see only a stupid, helpless Perakli pup standing there, but they’re afraid to trust their eyes. They each want one of the others to challenge you so they can watch, but none of them are eager to be the one.”

The spell-stick was absurdly long in his child’s grasp, and Ennis could see the end trembling as he held it; he hoped the Svarti couldn’t see it. “Show your throats to Ennis Svarti or challenge him,” Kurhv Kralj said. “Ennis Svarti . . .”

Ennis realized that Kurhv Kralj was waiting for him to step down from the dais and go to each of the Svarti in turn to receive their obeisance. “Go on!” Cima hissed in Daoine. “Quickly!”

The wisps of the blue ghosts shifted around him and he could see little of the patterns they made. He wished he’d never been born with a caul, even if that meant that he’d be dead now with Mam. He wanted to cry again, he wanted to hunker in the corner of his room again. He wanted to be home.

But he couldn’t go home. That wasn’t his future. His future, if the blue ghosts of the caul still had one to show him, was here.

He sucked in a breath that nearly sobbed and clutched harder at both Treoraí’s Heart and the spell-stick in his hand. Kurhv Kralj wouldn’t look at him. “Go!” Cima said. Ennis nearly jumped at the command, then stepped down from the dais. None of the Svarti had moved; not one of them had lifted their chins as the Mairki had to Kurhv Kralj. He went to the first of Svarti. Though the Arruk mages were smaller in stature than the muscular warriors, Ennis still barely came up to the bottom of the Arruk’s rib cage. He could smell the musk, could see the colored striations in the creature’s scales. The Svarti was looking down at him, an unblinking, unmoving glare. Ennis couldn’t have reached the Arruk’s throat with his hand as Kurhv Kralj had done; instead, he lifted the knobbed end of the spell stick and held it toward the Svarti.

“You have to learn to control your gift,”
Isibéal whispered inside.
“Control it . . .”

They were all watching: Kurhv Kralj, the Mairki, the other Svarti. None of them said anything or moved to interfere.
“Kurhv Kralj has what he wants,”
Gyl said from the taunting welter inside Ennis, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction in the dead Svarti’s voice.
“He’ll let you die now, if that’s to be, and take one of the others as his Svarti. He has become Kralj. He doesn’t need you anymore.”

“Control your gift . . .”
Isibéal repeated, and he heard his Mam whisper the same words, far in the background over the welter of other voices in the Heart.

“I’ll try, Mam,” he told her. He saw the Arruk in front of him flinch slightly at the Daoine words. Wisps of blue ghosts slid around him and he tried to find the right one, tried to find the pattern that he’d lost. Through Treoraí’s Heart, he could sense the magic stored in Gyl’s spell-stick. He felt the spells as if he could touch them and he could see how they were set in the wood and how they were held . . . “Cima,” he called out over his shoulder. “Tell them I captured Gyl Svarti’s spirit in the stone I hold. Through it, I can still talk to him.” He touched his own forehead as Cima began to translate. “I can force him to tell me things. I know the magic of the Daoine sky-stones, and now I know the magic of the Arruk spell-sticks. I know it better than Gyl Svarti or any of them do.”

There was a distinct snort of disbelief from the Svarti in front of him as Cima finished, and the creature raised his own spell-stick, holding it so close to Ennis’ face that he could see the tool marks on the carvings that adorned it. “Tell the bluntclaw that I am Daj Svarti,” he spat out as Cima translated, “and I challenge him. Tell him that I’ll match my spell-stick and my skill with the pup’s.”

The Mairki and the other Svarti were already slipping back and away, and even Kurhv Kralj moved to the rear of the dais behind the comforting bulk of the throne. Daj Svarti took a step back from Ennis, slamming the end of his spell-stick down on the flags. The
crack
of wood on stone was like high thunder. Ennis saw the blue ghosts slide around him, most of them following a similar dance through the next few breaths. He realized that this was a ritual, like the ceremonies the Draíodóiri performed during the festivals, that Daj Svarti was waiting for him to mimic his motion and begin the challenge. But Ennis saw the pale outline of another ghost, the one he’d sought, the one where, at the end of this, his own ghost was still standing there alive.

He let himself fall into the blue ghost’s embrace, locked himself to its movements. Ennis lifted his spell-stick as if he were about to bring it down hard, but instead he pointed the knobbed end to the side, away from Daj Svarti and the rest of the Arruk. He felt the magic caught in the carved branch, the power trembling and seething. He could find in Gyl Svarti’s mind the words to release them one at a time, but he didn’t need them. Instead, he released a bit of the power from Treoraí’s Heart and let it enter the spell-stick.
“Let them all go,”
Isibéal whispered, and the energy of the cloch leaped in response.

The spell-stick nearly burst apart in his hand. A wild cor uscation flared, so bright that it tossed sharp-edged shadows about the sunlit room and left purple afterimages in Ennis’ sight. His ears were assaulted by a deafening, low
ka-rump
and a smell like old eggs.

Where the mage-energy struck, the wall of the hall shattered, exploding outward in a dangerous, blinding shower of broken stone and mortar. Through the blinding screen of dust, there was the sound of an avalanche; as it slowly cleared, Ennis could see that not only had the hall been breached in a circle as wide as a hand of men walking abreast, but the walls of the rooms beyond had also been broken all the way through the corridor outside and an outer room beyond it, all the way to the outside. Dust swirled in a wedge of sunlight beyond three broken walls, each hole large than the one before. Small stones continued to fall in a harsh drizzle from around the yawning fissures.

The Arruk were staring dumbstruck at the destruction. The blue ghost moved and Ennis swiveled quickly to face Daj Svarti. He pointed the knob of the spell-stick, a wisp of smoke still curling away from its blackened wood, toward the Arruk, who scrambled almost comically backward away from the sight. Daj Svarti’s own spell-stick visibly shivered in his clawed hand. “Ennis Svarti?” he heard Cima call through the dust and the strange quiet.

“Tell the Svarti that’s what I’ll do to
all
of them if any one of them dares to challenge me,” Ennis told Cima. He brandished the spell-stick in their direction, hoping the bluff would work. There was nothing left in the spell-stick now; it was just a piece of wood. Treoraí’s Heart still held mage-energy, but to use the power in the Heart he would need to touch them; if the Svarti did use their spell-sticks, he could do nothing to stop them. He hoped he’d chosen the right ghost. The patterns had vanished, lost with the explosion.

Cima called out from the dais, speaking words in Arruk that made all the Svarti blink. Then, in Daoine, he said: “Ennis Svarti, take one step toward Daj Svarti. Keep your own head down. Don’t look up at him.”

Ennis obeyed. Daj Svarti stayed unmoving this time, but the Arruk’s snout lifted quickly as Ennis approached, displaying the fold of softer skin underneath, pale blue and white. Ennis swiveled to face the other Svarti; they had all exposed their throats, their spell-sticks held carefully away from him. The Mairki, too, had lifted their snouts slightly. Ennis heard Kurhv Kralj’s cry of satisfaction.

“Then it is settled,” Kurhv Kralj bellowed. “You will follow me and Ennis Svarti, and we will go to the Perakli lands all the way to Cudak Zvati, and no one will stand before us.”

He roared, and the Mairki and the Svarti all roared with him.

And so did Ennis.

THEY’D SEEN THE DRAGONS appear on the spires of the Narrows, and watched the Bán Cailleach turn away the army of the Tuatha. Kayne had been half terrified himself; he knew and yet didn’t know his sister at all. They’d been so close as children, as if sharing the same womb had forged an unbreakable bond between them. They were very different, aye, with distinctive temperaments and interests, but he had always been able to sense what Sevei was thinking and feeling better than anyone. He knew Sevei, he knew her moods and her dreams and her thoughts. And she . . . Sometimes he thought she knew him as well as he knew himself. More than once she’d come running when he’d hurt himself, before anyone could have known what had happened.

But the Bán Cailleach, the Pale Witch, the Dragon-friend, the Scarred Woman, the Holder of Lámh Shábhála—he didn’t know that Sevei at all. He was afraid that he never would.

The dragons had sat roaring their defiance atop the spires to the invading army all that day. In the fading light of the day, with the Airgiallaian force in obvious retreat, they’d uncoiled themselves and stretched batlike wings, pushing off the crags of the summits to wheel dangerously low over the Fingerlanders’ encampment and fly away: one to the west, the other—more interestingly to the Fingerlanders—to the east over the Finger. Kayne, with Harik at his side, had watched them leave, and Laird O’Blathmhaic had come up to them with Séarlait and Rodhlann as they watched the dragon vanish into the haze to the east. “They say that there were once dragons in the deepest mountains of the Finger,” Laird O’Blathmhaic said. “Clan Barrimaol has a skull in their Great Hall that they say is a dragon’s, and some Fingerlanders have found bones and teeth that are too big to be a bear or dire wolf. If the Sleeping Ones are rising, then there will be dragons again in the Finger.”

Kayne nodded. O’Blathmhaic said nothing for a few breaths, then stirred. “Some of the other lairds, they say it’s time to return to their homes now that the army is gone.”

Rodhlann nodded with O’Blathmhaic, patting the older man on the shoulder. “Aye, Tiarna,” he said. “Liam’s right. Banlaird MacCanna has sent word that I should return to the clan-home.”

“It’s not over,” Kayne told them. “Not yet.”

O’Blathmhaic chuckled at that. “Aye, with that, I agree. It’s never over. Not here in the Finger. It started generations ago and will go on for generations more. But for the moment ...”

Kayne stole a glance at Harik and saw the frown on his Hand’s face. Séarlait, still standing alongside her greada, kept her face carefully neutral, though her gaze was on Kayne. “It’s important that we stay together,” Kayne said. “No, I’m not a Fingerlander, except by marriage—” Séarlait gave him a small smile at that, and he returned it, “—and aye, I don’t understand how it is here as you do, Laird, but the Riocha may yet return with more Clochs Mór and more men.”